New Jacobean-style venue being built by the Globe to be called Sam Wanamaker Theatre

Shakespeare's Globe has announced a new indoor venue to allow audiences to see plays all year round.

The audience will watch candlelit performances in the central London venue, which will be built, from 17th-century plans, next to the existing Globe by the River Thames.

The Sam Wanamaker Theatre will be named after the actor and director and founder of Shakespeare's Globe.

Artistic director Dominic Dromgoole said: "The Sam Wanamaker Theatre will allow the Globe to continue its experimental vision of going back to the future.

"Just as with the Globe itself, these unique playing conditions offer an opportunity to refresh our understanding of Jacobean theatre, and to provoke new visions for the future of how theatre can be made".

Chair of the Architecture Research Group Dr Farah Karim-Cooper said that the building would allow the Globe to "continue to discover how these plays worked in their original environment".

First performances in the Sam Wanamaker Theatre are due to begin in January 2014.

Shakespeare's Globe finally opened in 1997 after more than 27 years planning and four years construction.

The venue is being built based on drawings found in the 1960s in a book at Oxford University's Worcester College.

They are thought to be the earliest existing set of design drawings for an English theatre.

The company has raised most of the £7.5 million cost of the new venue from individuals and charitable trusts, with around £1 million still to fund.

PA